ON January 12, 1918, two British warships were wrecked in a blizzard on rocks off the Orkneys. Of the 189 men on board, only one survived. Indeed, as the ships were smashed up by the seas, only 55 bodies could …

ONE hundred years ago, the telegram boys in the North-East were beginning one of their busiest periods of the First World War, delivering dreadful news to the families of young men out fighting in Flanders fields.